


483. instincts

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [192]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-15 14:00:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9238037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “Why don’t you fly,” Sarah says.Helena freezes, perched on one foot on a root. Sarah thinks of deer. Sarah thinks of things that run.On Helena’s back, her wings have frozen still.





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: body horror, mutilation, reference to animal abuse]

They gave Sarah one of the mutts from the village to help her kill the thing out lurking in the woods. It – _she_ – is named Helena, apparently, and looks almost entirely human except for her strange slit-pupiled eyes and the wings Sarah can see flexing restlessly under the saggy burlap fabric of her top. She’s humming something. Occasionally she claws a strip of bark off a tree with her too-sharp nails and eats it.

“Where are we going,” Sarah says flatly, hand solid on her sword.

Helena points in a direction. Her jaws keep mashing down the bark. When Sarah looks around, she realizes that all the trees she can see have little chunks taken out of them.

“You know these woods?”

Helena shrugs her shoulder. Her wings flap frantically, like cats thrown in a bag to be drowned. Like children wrestling in the womb. Like something nature-born, and terrified.

“Do you _talk?_ ” Sarah says. She realizes she doesn’t know if the mutts can talk. She knows people don’t like them much – not that you would, not human enough to be human and not enough of anything else to go live somewhere besides the villages. They take odd jobs. They eat anything. Do they talk? Sarah had just assumed.

“Yes, Sarah Manning,” Helena says, swallowing the bark down. “I have talks.” She has a rasping little accent – whether she comes from far away or if that’s just how she talks, Sarah doesn’t know.

“Just – wanted to be sure, I guess,” Sarah mutters. Her hand traces over the familiar hilt of her sword. She does that when she gets worried; it’s a bad habit.

“I sleep here,” Helena says. She hops from root to root. Her feet are bare; there’s a strange sort of beauty in the way they flex, how solid their landings are. Sarah’s boots usually make her feel solid, planted. Right now she just feels clumsy.

“In the woods?”

“Yes,” Helena says. “They don’t like me. Back there. Sometimes they are throwing things. In the woods are prickles and sticks, but nobody yells.” She breaks off a branch from a berry bush and shoves the whole thing, unchewed, down her throat. Swallows it.

“Those edible?” Sarah says.

“No.” Helena says. She grins – or, rather, she peels back her lips from her teeth. They keep going deeper into the woods.

“It’s quiet here.”

“Yes,” Helena says. “Very hungry bellies in the woods. Mine. But. Also. Bigger bellies. Sharp-tooth bellies. No more birds. Are you going to kill it?”

“That’s the plan.”

Helena hums. “But not with your teeth.”

“No.”

Helena stares at Sarah’s sword with open, naked curiosity. Then she looks away again. They keep walking.

“Why don’t you fly,” Sarah says.

Helena freezes, perched on one foot on a root. Sarah thinks of deer. Sarah thinks of things that run.

On Helena’s back, her wings have frozen still.

“They don’t like me,” Helena says, words completely toneless, “in the village. They don’t like anybody who can do things they can’t do.” She looks at Sarah. Her eyes are flat and dark. “I used to fly. Now no.”

Sarah’s stomach is a stone. “Oh,” she croaks. “Sorry.”

“Why.”

“’cause that’s what you say,” Sarah says, “when you’re sad for someone else.”

“Hm,” Helena says. She hops off the root, lands on the balls of her feet and keeps going deeper. “When you kill it, the hungry thing, will you go? Away? Back home?”

“Don’t have a home,” Sarah says. “I’ll just find the next hungry thing, and I’ll kill that one too. Keep going.”

“To where.”

“Dunno. Going’s the point, yeah?”

“Oh.” Helena slows her pace, so she’s walking next to Sarah. “What is it like.”

“What?”

“Going.”

“It’s – great,” Sarah says. “Can’t imagine staying put. Every place is so different, and you can be any—” she stops. Helena laughs, next to her, the smallest and bitterest _heh_.

“Anybody,” she says. “Unless.”

“Sorry, I didn’t…” Sarah doesn’t know what she didn’t, but she didn’t.

“Someday,” Helena says, “I will go. But. I am glad that I did not go before this. Because now I can help you.”

“Well,” Sarah says, “thanks.”

“Many welcomes, Sarah Manning,” Helena says. “I hope you can fly far away from all this. I hope you find what you are looking for.”

“You too.”

“Heh,” Helena says, and rips another chunk of bark off the tree to swallow it whole.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


End file.
